Old threads worth another look?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I started out trying to find “the oldest thread” and decided after a bit of looking that maybe there’s some fun to be had in sharing that search with anybody who cares.

Two ideas have come to me:

  1. Continue trying to find Thread # 1

  2. Take some of these oldies and start new threads on the same topic and refer back to them as inspirations for the new threads

Maybe there are even more intelligent things to do with this information.

Anyway here are some things I located in my dabbling:

The dumb questions thread.
09-28-2001, 03:17 PM
Fenris

Question about “e.r.” (TV Show)
12-08-2000, 08:58 AM
sdimbert

This one will give you chills…
03-23-2000, 04:58 AM
Omniscient

Sense of smell not for everyone?
12-29-1999, 08:58 AM
aenea

Cold Fusion?
08-26-1999, 10:51 PM
Patricinus Scriblerus

ME-The Movie
08-24-1999, 09:45 PM
Czarcasm

Time for a little insight. Who would play you in your movie biography?

My pick is…Jeff Goldblum!

2

Some smaller Thread ID numbers, but not necessarily older contents.

And there have been many “no such thread” (or words to that effect) responses.

==================================================

MAJOR SYSTEM PROBLEMS
09-01-1999, 11:58 PM
TubaDiva

Why bracelet?
06-01-1999, 09:17 PM
Guest

Good-bye Straight Up Dopes
07-01-1999, 02:48 PM
Guest

Porphyria vs. Lupus in folklore
09-17-1999, 06:11 PM
Boris B

Italian Cooking and tomatoes?
06-16-1999, 06:52 AM
Guest

3

Okay! Thread #1 exists, but it’s not the oldest.

What is?

TSD needs chat hosts, board moderators
05-14-1999, 10:53 AM
Guest

Cecil’s column on Preparation H
03-18-1999, 07:59 AM
Guest

What does “DLUR, TRKE” mean?
03-27-1999, 10:52 AM
Guest

New Guy In Town
07-12-2000, 02:38 PM
zebbmx

4

It would appear that the oldest (smallest) Thread ID numbers relate to Cecil’s columns.

Can you think of some keyword that ought to appear in any really old threads so that a search on that keyword for any thread older than 10 years sorted ascending on latest post date might zoom in on the oldest starting date?

My last batch of oldies until somebody else sees a point to this endeavor:

=========================================================

Cecil’s Lousy Call Letter Answer (repost)
03-12-1999, 06:58 PM
Guest

Cecil’s column
03-16-1999, 11:24 AM
Guest

cecil’s brain
03-21-1999, 10:03 PM
Guest

8th man vs cecil’s witless minions
04-05-1999, 06:25 PM
Guest

Welcome!
03-10-1999, 11:25 PM
Guest

Ni-Cad Battery Answer
03-16-1999, 10:04 AM
Guest

Helicopter column of 12/30/94
04-03-1999, 08:04 AM
Guest

5

Haha, the complaints in that thread about realplayer and quicktime plugins sure bring back memories. The internet has come a long way in 10 years.

6

It is indeed enlightening to see how little has really changed in terms of what annoys people about the internet.

BTW, I finally realized that searches can be based on “thread start date (or time)” so that those earliest ones can be hunted directly. Finding that magic keyword is still eluding me, though.

Unless there’s some magic I can’t explain, I think the oldest on accessible now is

Welcome!
03-10-1999, 11:25 PM
Guest
My original idea in this process was to try to locate the thread topic that has been repeated/renewed the most times. Surely the failed zombies (by virtue of being closed) are good examples, but every time somebody thinks they have “a new idea” the odds are pretty good that somebody else will post a link to an older thread dealing with that very idea.

I just want to locate one of those “better ideas” that has been reposted more than any other, so finding a neat batach of “original threads” seemed like the place to begin.

Thus all the nonsense already in this thread!

If other searchers for this treasure want to join me, I bet we can come up with some rewards that will be truly spectacular.

Takers?

7

Except the Quicktime plugin still sucks balls. Playing videos in little tiny windows that can’t be maximized? Fuck that.

8

Another fun thing about that thread is that every poster in the thread (that I checked anyway) had a 4-digit or smaller Member Number. Not too long ago (maybe a year, maybe less) there was some fun in another thread of this type trying to locate the smallest Member Number that was “still active.” I don’t remember whose it is but it was 2-digit or less.

9

Yo! Check it out: Straight Dope Message Board - Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet, plus a few total dipsticks.

10

Here is a different Welcome thread, this one in ATMB. Includes instructions in how to quote a prior post.

Mind you, this was back before we had any buttons to do it for you. You had to manually type in the quote tags, if I recall correctly. Same with bold and italic: you had to type the square brackets and the i or b and then again to end them.

11

Thanks, #66! I guess you ought to know all about this stuff. Can you recall threads with older start dates than March 1999?

What topic from those early days do you think has been repeated (in terms of thread titles) the most?

12

Yeah, but you’ll need a time machine to see them.

This was the first SDMB thread I ever started, in 1997: aol://5863:126/mB:59300:54753

For a surprisingly long time that link still worked (if you had AOL installed on your computer), long after the old AOL board was no longer extant. But eventually someone at AOL got around to unplugging it.

March 1999 is when the curtain came up on this board. If there’s anything earlier it would have to consist of test posts by Tuba and Lynn. None of us ordinary mortals would have been around.

13

Here are some facts relating to the Archives:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php

250 threads per page

About This Message Board
[1]
03-10-1999, 11:38 PM
[42]
08-29-2010, 09:14 AM

The BBQ Pit
[1]
03-11-1999, 12:20 AM
[136]
08-29-2010, 10:06 AM

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
[1]
03-15-1999, 08:17 PM
[446]
08-29-2010, 08:09 AM

General Questions
[1]
03-16-1999, 02:57 PM
[706]
08-29-2010, 10:34 AM

In My Humble Opinion
[1]
04-13-1999, 11:03 AM
[285]
08-29-2010, 10:19 AM

Great Debates
[1]
06-02-1999, 03:39 PM
[134[
08-29-2010, 02:38 AM

Cafe Society
[1]
09-10-1999, 02:01 PM
[369]
08-29-2010, 08:52 AM

The Game Room
[1]
01-10-2005, 04:26 AM
[26]
08-29-2010, 09:14 AM

===========================

My strategy in this list was
First Post on First Thread on First Page
Last Post on Last Thread on Last Page

By the time you check for “last page” in any forum, odds are its number will be greater than what I have showed. The Archives appear to be updated in real time.

This doesn’t account for the possibility that the most recent/latest post in the forum is the “Last Post on Last Thread on Last Page” since it could be the last post in a previous thread.

But it ought to help with “ballparking” the ranges of each forum

Other details about the Archives will be fun to figure out.